The Foundations of Western Civilization

What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.

Excellent course!

This is my second, all time favorite history course thus far. I have only been a patron of the Great Courses for about 7 or 8 months when my favorite ..Show More »podcaster mentioned they were now on Audible. I highly recommend this particular course. The professor is very good at what he does, captivating, interesting, and knowledgeable.

Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World

Beginning with the Renaissance, the culture of the West exploded. Over the next 600 years, rapid innovations in philosophy, technology, economics, military affairs, and politics allowed what had once been a cultural backwater left by the collapse of the Roman Empire to dominate the world. This comprehensive series of 48 lectures by an award-winning teacher and captivating lecturer will show you how - and why - this extraordinary transformation took place.

The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History

History is made and defined by landmark events-moments that irrevocably changed the course of human civilization. They have given us: spiritual and political ideas; catastrophic battles and wars; scientific and technological advances; world leaders both influential and monstrous; and cultural works of unparalleled beauty.

Masters of War: History's Greatest Strategic Thinkers

From Napoleon's revolutionary campaigns to the way insurgency, terrorism, and nuclear weaponry have defined the nature of warfare in the 21st century, the results of military strategy have changed the course of history. These 24 thought-provoking lectures give you an inside look at both the content and historical context of the world's greatest war strategists. From the triremes and hoplites of ancient Greece to the Special Forces in 21st-century Afghanistan, strategy is the process by which political objectives are translated into military action.

Fast paced art of war

No I would not. As the title says it is a great lecture series not a great story so the lecturer moves quite fast through the material with the expect..Show More »ation that the listener is well versed in military history. Not for the casual listener more for a student of the military. If that happens to be you well then this is a thorough course covering many characters and military strategies.

Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity

How is it possible for the disciplines of cosmology, geology, anthropology, biology, and history to fit together? These 48 lectures answer that question by weaving a single story from accounts of the past developed by a variety of scholarly disciplines. The result is a story stretching from the origins of the universe to the present day and beyond, in which human history is seen as part of the history of our Earth and biosphere, and the Earth's history, in turn, is seen as part of the history of the universe.

The Big Picture of Big History

This was my first foray into The Great Courses series of lectures, but it certainly will not be my last.

Peoples and Cultures of the World

As the "science of humanity," anthropology can help us understand virtually anything about ourselves, from our political and economic systems, to why we get married, to how we decide to buy a particular bottle of wine. This 24-lecture course reveals the extraordinary power of anthropology - and its subspecialty, cultural anthropology - as a tool to understand the world's varied human societies, including our own.

The world is not only made of tribes

Actually the world is made of tribes, but I was left with the feeling that the book was too much focused on small tribes (interesting as they may be....Show More ». and they are). I was expecting a more overarching perspective of big tribes: modern peoples and nations... it would be more useful.It was a good anthropological exercise though...

The Development of European Civilization

In almost every way that matters, historical Europe was the laboratory in which the world you now live in was conceived and tested. And you'll be living with the consequences for the rest of your life. These 48 lectures lead you through the doors of that laboratory and guide you through the development of Europe from the late Middle Ages through the eve of World War II.

The Development of Some European Civilizarion

A fine job with the dominant European cultures, such as Britain, France, and Germany, with less emphasis on the other European states.

From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History

For most of its 5,000-year existence, China has been the largest, most populous, wealthiest, and mightiest nation on Earth. And for us as Westerners, it is essential to understand where China has been in order to anticipate its future. These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history.You'll learn about the powerful dynasties that ruled China for centuries; the philosophical and religious foundations-particularly Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism-that have influenced every iteration of Chinese thought, and the larger-than-life personalities, from both inside and outside its borders, of those who have shaped China's history. As you listen to these lectures, you'll see how China's politics, economics, and art reflect the forces of its past.From the "Mandate of Heaven," a theory of social contract in place by 1500 B.C.E., 3,000 years before Western philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, to the development of agriculture and writing independent of outside influence to the technologically-advanced Han Dynasty during the time of the Roman Empire, this course takes you on a journey across ground that has been largely unexplored in the history courses most of us in the West have taken.In guiding you through the five millennia of China's history, Professor Hammond tells a fascinating story with an immense scope, a welcome reminder that China is no stranger to that stage and, indeed, has more often than not been the most extraordinary player on it.

A good listen

Yes because it is a great crash course to Chinese history and seems to cover all of the main events.

The African Experience: From 'Lucy' to Mandela

The story of Africa is the oldest and most event-filled chronicle of human activity on the planet. And in these 36 lectures, you'll explore this great historical drama, tracing the story of the sub-Saharan region of the continent from the earliest evidence of human habitation to the latest challenges facing African nations in the 21st century. By learning with these lectures, you'll finally be able to bust myths and correct potential misunderstandings about Africa.

Africa Found!

The lost continent gets found in this excellent overview course by the Teaching Company. All in all, this is a great course. Well presented and master..Show More »fully prepared. I would have liked more chronology and a bit more focus on the details of events (as I already understand the larger trajectories), but the professor was quite ambitious and careful in his selection of material. All of the Great Courses are a RIDICULOUSLY high value.

My biggest complaint would be that the course was too short to provide the level of coverage I would have liked. It really should be two separated into 2 separate courses: one for the pre-colonial period and one for the post-colonial period through to today.

For one thing, the discussion of ancient African societies is broad in scope, but shallow in depth. I wish there was more detail on Nubian culture, especially the kingdom of Kush and Ta Seti A closer look at Axum and Ethiopia, the dynasties and mysteries (was their a Gudit and who was she?). Interactions between these states and the rest of the ancient world (a role and context very underrepresented and unappreciated in traditional western historical analyses), and so forth. Likewise for the West African states, Kongo and Great Zimbabwe.

But, this really isn't a history course. Or, it is, but it is also so many other things. It's history, sociology, anthropology, geography, linguistics, etc. The professor sometimes gets side tracked on interesting and relevant questions (e. g. what is a state?) and these take up time that might have otherwise gone to giving more detail about Africa's history. Don't get me wrong, I truly appreciate the importance of these questions to the subject at hand (e. g. how we define a state impacts how we evaluate one culture/society's historical importance, and this even more pertinent a consideration when looking at Africa's history as in, say, the Middle East). I also really love a comprehensive, unified approach to history, because it is the only way to get context and understanding.

Unfortunately, there are lots more high quality resources on those tangential questions than there are about the history and role of some of these civilizations. Also, the modern conflicts are greatly summarized. Don't expect to come out of this case able to make sense of the recent conflict in the Congo, nor that in Sudan (in fact, modern Sudan is lumped in with NORTH Africa, and thus isn't covered save a lecture that discusses the role of it and Egypt in early African state formation). Liberian Civil War? You are told it happened, but not much else. There's too much to talk about, even without waxing philosophical on the nature of statehood or the value judgments implicit in the term "civilization".

Africa, much like Asia, traditionally gets isolated out into it's only little bubble of academic study. "History" is the history of the "West", focusing on Greece > Rome > Europe. Then you end up with "China studies" or "South American studies", and indeed "African studies". It's really not helpful in my opinion to separate out these regional spheres into little bubbles. We get overwhelmed by too much content to cover (try teaching a single class called "Neanderthal to the Netherlands") and ironically we lose some of the big picture (how our bubble truly fits in with all the other bubbles in the larger themes of world history). Sure, we see some lines that get drawn pointing out and/or back into those bubbles, but we draw clear lines of where one thing stops and another begins. This course doesn't play to that kind of dogma (much the opposite), but it can't help but bend under the burden of having to account for an entire continent (and a large one), both history and so much else. We end up missing the detail that might put into focus not only the local events (just what happened in Somalia over the past 30 years?) but how those local events bleed across regional lines (Ethiopia played a really interesting role in the geopolitical power struggle for Arabia between Byzantine Rome and Sassanid Persia, and Nubia had some quite interesting interactions with Assyria, Persia, and Rome). We get some very vague sense of this, but that is all.

More time (2 48 lecture course), would of course could have helped the problem, but better yet would be a bunch more courses! So hopefully there are enough people interested to badger the Teaching Company to do some more African History courses, with a finer level of detail and some more localized focus to supplement this one. We don't need another course on Greece or Rome, we need to fill in some of our knowledge gaps and Africa is a huge knowledge gap for me and many others! Email them!

All of that is really a form of praise in disguise. Thank you, Teaching Company, for having courses like this, and please keep going in this direction!

One word of warning: the Teaching Company courses all come with a downloadable PDF (the "Course Book" or "Course Guide"). At least when you buy them online from the Teaching Company. Unfortunately, not when you get the course here at Audible. The course book is a complete outline of the course material, lecture by lecture. Very handy for review, or even just to remember which lecture was the one where they discussed ______. The coursebooks also list references, suggested reading, contain supplemental material (pictures, maps, diagrams, tables, charts, etc) and a glossary that make them very handy. Again, these aren't just free, but a standard part of the course when you buy them directly from the Teaching Company. But not here at Audible. Do us all a favor and email Audible and the Great Courses and let them know we would love to have these made available to us (especially since Audible already has a means of providing supplemental PDFs that accompany the audio books they carry; I imagine this just wasn't considered when the two formed the partnership between them).

The chapters in Audible are also not correctly titled for the lecture titles. You can't just pull up the TOC and see "aha, the next lecture is on Great Zimbabwe. Awesome!" You're left lost in the lost continent. So you have very limited ability to navigate around the course. You can't go back and just easily to the lecture on African geography, because you can't tell which chapter that was. If you had the course book, you could at least look it up and then know what chapter number it was, but as I mentioned already that isn't provided (you can tell how much I want my coursebooks, huh!). But it would also be nice if the Audible app would list the actual chapter titles as well.

Making History: How Great Historians Interpret the Past

How do historians create their histories? What role do the historian's viewpoint and method play in what we accept as truth? Answer these questions and more as you go inside the minds of our greatest historians and explore the idea of written history as it has shaped humanity's story over 2,000 years

More Histrionics than History

A previous reviewer criticized the overwrought delivery on the part of this lecturer, and I failed to heed the warning, in part because a second revie..Show More »wer rolled out an enthusiastic defense. From the sample, I thought I could manage. Wrong.

I hate to criticize a man who is obviously a good scholar, an enthusiast, and probably a fine, lively teacher in the flesh. But I'm afraid this venture just didn't work out. Perhaps at the publisher's urging, the material has been way, way over "popularized."

The thespian antics, wry chuckles, and jokiness seem aimed to hold the attention of a room full of six-year-olds. I almost picture the lecturer with hand puppets.I don't mind a bit of oomph and personality in a lecture. But this is so distracting I find it nearly impossible to grasp the content, which may be very good--but I'll never know.

There may be audience for this. If others feel differently, I hope they will write in. Perhaps I'm just old and mean, but I prefer scholarly lectures as I prefer a martini--straight up and dry, thank you.

War and World History

This fresh and challenging inquiry into human societies takes a deep look at the effects and roles of war. As the most complex of all human endeavors, warfare - from ancient to modern - has spurred the growth of essential new technologies; demanded the adoption of complex economic systems; shaped the ideology and culture of nations; promoted developments in art and literature; and spread faith across the globe.

World History > War

This course seems more like a survey of World History than the title would suggest. I found the lack of detail regarding both Military and World hist..Show More »ory often left me wanting more. Given the scope of the course - from the dawn of mankind to the present - I guess this isn't surprising. I stuck it out to the end, but I was more than ready to be done with it.

Foundations of Eastern Civilization

China. Korea. Japan. Southeast Asia. How did Eastern civilization develop? What do we know about the history, politics, governments, art, science, and technology of these countries? And how does the story of Eastern civilization play out in today's world of business, politics, and international exchange?

A worthwhile "big-history" survey

Perhaps...at least certain parts.

Reviewed on November 22 2013
by Acteon
(Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

36 Revolutionary Figures of History

Alexander the Great, Jesus, Darwin, and Churchill are just a few of the many politicians, religious leaders, scientists, philosophers, authors, inventors, and generals who transformed our world in ways that still resonate today. Now, with this unique collection of 36 lectures from our extensive course catalog, meet the remarkable people without whom the world would never be the same.

A hodgepodge

This is an anthology of lectures pulled from other Great Courses. Apparently, someone decided on a list of revolutionary figures and then went in sear..Show More »ch of lectures that mention those people.

Unfortunately, the lecturers do not know that they are supposed to be talking about how or why these people were revolutionaries. Also, since the other courses vary in topic from art, history and politics it gives a very uneven feel to the work.

History's Greatest Voyages of Exploration

Mutiny. Disease. Starvation. Cannibals. From the ancient wayfarers to modern astronauts, world explorers have blazed trails fraught with danger. Yet, as History's Greatest Voyages of Exploration vividly demonstrates, exploration continues to be one of humanity's deepest impulses. Across 24 lectures that unveil the process by which we came to know the far reaches of our planet, you'll witness the awe-inspiring and surprisingly interconnected tale of global exploration.

Could not put it down. Was sad it had to end.

This was an excellent course all around. I will be looking for more courses by this lecturer for my next credits.

Understanding Cultural and Human Geography

In addition to the study of the environment, Professor Robbins examines the wide-ranging implications of a world economy. You'll explore the wellspring of culture and delve into the thorny issues of geography, ethnicity, and statehood. When you complete this course, you'll have all the tools you need to look beyond the headlines and analyze world events in a whole new way.

Concise

Perceptive, and thought-provoking. Time well spent, but I wish there was a pdf to follow along with this lecture.

Understanding Japan: A Cultural History

In an exciting partnership with the Smithsonian, The Great Courses presents these 24 lectures that offer an unforgettable tour of Japanese life and culture. Professor Ravina, with the expert collaboration of the Smithsonian's historians, brings you a grand portrait of Japan.